According to Search Engine Land, this has turned out to be true. But rather than a 'slow' rollout, Penguin 3.0 is being continually updated, with no "distinct end-point" in sight.

The shift to continual updates was confirmed by a Google spokesperson. Here's the statement in full:

That last big update is still rolling out — though really there won't be a particularly distinct end-point to the activity, since Penguin is shifting to more continuous updates. The idea is to keep optimizing as we go now."

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land believes the 'as-they-go' update strategy also signals a shift in the way the updates are managed. Rather than making updates offline, then rolling them out at specific launch dates, Schwartz reckons changes to the algorithm may be made while rankings are live.

He wrote: "Live changes to the Penguin algorithm seems to imply no more large data pushes for Penguin."

Google has not yet confirmed whether ranking recovery is possible with each of these live updates, or whether webmasters have to wait until the next 'numbered' update to see changes in rankings.